Better times for Albany?

Our opinion: Plans are unveiled for the renovation of an abandoned downtown Albany hotel, next to an envisioned smaller convention center. Taxpayers need information on the broader vision for downtown. Too much is unknown.

Imagine a place where a closed and deteriorating 15-story hotel stood across the street from the state Capitol and just down the block from City Hall for almost 40 years. Imagine how such an eyesore stood in the way of the creative rebirth of downtown.

That was Albany, of course, and Monday’s announcement of a $48.5 million renovation that will turn the former DeWitt Clinton Hotel into a 204-room Renaissance by Marriott could be one more step toward downtown fulfilling its long dormant potential.

The intersection of Eagle Street and State Street, so prominent in its proximity to the Capitol, has stood out as a symbol of a city in decline. Today’s DeWitt Clinton building offers a successful street-level banquet facility and 14 stories of grim reminder of what Albany once was in contrast to what it has become.

Around the corner, where the old Wellington Hotel has been abandoned for almost as long, sits an even worse example of urban neglect and decay. Now the buildings known as Wellington Row are to be renovated, too, though on a more reasonable scale than the 14-story office tower that was proposed there a few years ago.

A development of the magnitude of Columbia Development Companies’ Renaissance project, funded largely with private dollars, could help transform the compact core of a city of Albany’s size.

Yet as promising as the hotel proposal is, the larger question of what’s next for all of downtown remains. There has been precious little open discussion of options recently, and no clarity on what the next steps might mean to taxpayers.

The Albany Convention Center Authority last month unveiled rough plans for an 80,000-square-foot facility that would rise steps away from the new hotel. The two-floor convention center would be linked to the Times Union Center and Empire State Plaza by covered walkways. Authority officials say the project could be built with the $63 million remaining from a state grant set aside years ago for a much larger convention center a half-mile east.

What they don’t yet know is whether the proposal is viable — that is, whether a scaled-down convention center at that site makes sense. The authority has commissioned a $500,000 market study, but its conclusion is easy to predict. Such studies rarely depart from the biases of the entity that funds them.

In the quite understandable excitement over the hotel proposal, and alongside the prospect that the long uncertainty over the convention center could be neatly wrapped up with funds already set aside by the state, there’s risk that the larger question will be ignored: What is the vision for downtown that will encourage long-term economic growth and stability?

Notably, there is no approved plan for the largely vacant six-acre site near the south end of Broadway that was assembled for the now abandoned larger convention center project. That land was acquired with taxpayer dollars, and it should be used for the benefit of as broad a swath of citizens as possible. We await a plan for its creative use.

Similarly, there’s little clarity on what taxpayers really would be getting in the downsized convention center, or who would profit by its development, or what would happen if its cost runs over the money now pledged by the state. These questions demand answers before the next steps are taken.

Months away from completing his 20-year tenure, Mayor Jerry Jennings could be handing his successor the outline of a plan that might either revitalize downtown or saddle future generations with hulking remnants of empty promises. We won’t know which it is without a transparent and thoughtful process undertaken with the determination to enable Albany’s downtown to achieve its potential

6 Responses

I’ll believe it when I see it: That these properties, directly across the street from the Capitol and City Hall and overlooked by the County Office building are being fantasized over once again, is far more indicative of parochial political rot than any architectural or economic development.

If there was some political competition (read: two parties) in Albany or even anyone in the layers government agencies with a true sense of entrepreneurial competition, taxes, regulation, and promotion of these properties would have long-ago landed valuable development.

Instead, we have generations of Machine cronies who have gathered, partnered and held these properties in anticipation of insider trades and government development. Fantasy development has been stalled so long that some of them have retired, died off, or their heirs are now in line to “reap” what previous generations of pols have sown.

So are the Machine legatees finally going to cash-in before Mayor Jennings exits or dare they roll the dice with the Occupy Albany Dems? Therein lies the only competition for the future of Albany. Both have Capitol periphery property experience, but the question is which one has altruistic Albany visions?

A replica of Fort Orange, definitely! I was unaware that Harry had written about it; it was an idea that I’ve had for years. By the way, have you seen Don Rittner’s blog entry from July 14 about his vision for downtown? Get behind it! It would inject a tremendous amount of new life into the city and the entire region.

Here is another idea, albeit a very little one. I was going to write a letter to the editor this afternoon about it, but as long as I’m here, let me mention it. You know the project that is going on right now on Eagle Street by the Capitol? 16 years ago when I was reading Jack McEneny’s book, Albany: Capital City On the Hudson, I learned about Adam Blake, the owner of the Kenmore Hotel and the Congress Hotel, the latter of which was on the property that is now the site of our state Capitol. Adam and Catherine Blake were prominent citizens and business owners in the city of Albany in the 19th century. They were also African-American. They are part of our history and our local heritage. Let’s rename the intersection of Eagle and State Streets Blake Square at the completion of this project.